Maximum Ride: Duelist Of Industrial Illusions
by SaurusRock625
Summary: After her expiration date finally appears on the back of her neck, Max is abandoned by her flock. Heartbroken and hurting, she sets out for her own death and meets the creator of Duel Monsters. Just what could Pegasus have in mind for our favorite Bird Kid with the Battle City tournament underway? And what's this about the Egyptian God Cards?
1. Chapter 1

_**This story idea actually came to me in a dream. It's meant to be a trilogy for my own story series. Maximum Ride will prove the Flock wrong about her by fighting against the likes of Marik and his Rare Hunters, Yako and his Wicked God Cards, and even against Zorc The Dark One when they go to get the Pharaoh's memories back! Now, ladies and gentlemen… sit back and enjoy the show!**_

 _ ***I don't own the franchises known as Maximum Ride and Yu-Gi-Oh! Never have, never will!***_

"I summon the Galaxy-Eyes Photon Dragon!" = Normal Speech

' _I activate Swords of Revealing Light!' = Thoughts_

 _(Galaxy-Eyes Photon Dragon: [Monster/Effect] Dragon/LIGHT [8]_ _ **ATK: 3000/**_ _DEF: 2500]) = Card Stats_

" **Mirror Force, reflect his attack!" = Yelling**

' _ **OH MY GOD, IT HURTS SO MUCH!' = Mental Yelling**_

* * *

 _ **Prologue: Abandoned By The Flock!**_

* * *

 _ **Max's POV.**_

* * *

' _ **Those ungrateful bastards! How dare they?!'**_

Flying at hypersonic speed, I made my way across the vast ocean that seemed to be nothing but an endless expanse of blue on our beautiful planet. My heart feels like it's been ripped out, stomped on by a pair of spiky cleats and thrown into a garbage disposal set of puree! Even now, I find it hard to see with all of the tears welling up in my eyes and falling into the briney blue below.

Oh, right. You probably don't know who I am, do you?

Well, I'd be surprised if you didn't, seeing as how I've saved the world from threats like Itex and some weird director who was using weirdass technology to keep himself alive. But I'll tell you anyway.

My name's Maximum Ride. Just call me Max. I'm the former leader of a group of human/avian hybrids known as The Flock. I'm sure you've read up on us from Fang's Blog.

Now a lot of you might be wondering why I used the word 'former'.

Well… It's because I'm not going to live long enough to lead them anymore.

That's right… my Expiration Date finally showed up on the back of my neck.

It happened about three days ago. We were doing our usual thing with the Coalition To Stop The Madness, a group that my mom Doctor Valencia Martinez, founded in order to help us spread the word about how we've been destroying our planet and to try and get more people to help save our world. Mainly through things like finding clean alternative energy sources and protecting the animals and wildlife that we have left on our planet. But before one of our airshows, Fang noticed something on the back of my neck.

He pulled me aside so we wouldn't worry anyone else in case it was serious. And boy was it.

You see, we recombinant life forms, even the successful ones, don't last as long as ordinary humans or other animals do. We have these built-in expiration dates that appear on the back of our necks when we're close to dying. It happened to my dear little half-brother, Ari, and now it's happened to me!

I told Fang that we would at least wait until after the show to tell the rest of the Flock and my mother about this. He agreed to wait that long at least.

After the show, which was a huge success even with Gazzy not sticking to the choreography again, we gathered the rest of the flock along with my mom, Jeb, and my sister Ella Martinez. We showed them the expiration date and Jeb honestly looked more surprised than he ever has in all the time I've known him. Apparently, being the most successful recombinant life form meant that I wasn't supposed to have an expiration date. That said, there was only one thing left to do at that point…

The Flock had kicked me out once again.

I couldn't believe it! After everything I've done for them! Everything I've been through just to try and save the world and keep them safe!

The death… the loss… the suffering…!

WHO ARE THEY TO DECIDE THAT I SHOULDN'T CONTINUE MY MISSION UNTIL MY LAST BREATH?!

Oh sure, they TRIED to feed me a bunch of bullshit excuses for kicking me out. Saying that I should just use my last days alive to relax and live in peace. But I've had enough of that! I didn't even stick around to hear what Ella and Doctor Martinez had to say about the subject. I just bolted out of the building and flew off as fast as I could fly. Which is pretty damn fast, if you think about it.

And so, I've spent the last three days flying at literally maximum speed to try and tire myself out enough that I might die before letting this damn expiration date do me in. So far, I haven't stopped to really do much of anything. I haven't slept, I haven't eaten, and since arriving over the ocean I rarely even use the bathroom.

As I continue to soar over the open sea, I begin to wonder just how much longer I'll last until I finally lose all of my remaining strength and fall to my doom. Who knows? Maybe a shark will come along and eat me for dinner.

If it does that, will I taste like chicken to the shark? Or will I just float along as a decomposing corpse until I reach the bottom of the sea and get covered by sediments and stay dead long enough to be dug up later on by future paleontologists?

Questions for later.

' _Come on you dying excuse for a body, just shut down already! What does it take to freaking kill myself from exhaustion?!'_ I mentally asked myself.

But it seems like my wish is about to come true. My vision is beginning to blur and I'm slowing down, having a harder time keeping myself awake. I smile as I realize something.

This is it… the moment I've been waiting for. The moment of my death!

As my wings stop flapping and can't keep me airborne any longer I think about my dead half-brother, Ari. His whole life taken away from him after being turned into a human/wolf hybrid known as an Eraser. Hopefully, he's found peace up there in the afterlife.

And maybe… Just maybe… I will too…

' _Well, cruel world… goodbye and good riddance!'_ I think while cursing the world.

And with that, I finally close my eyes and lose consciousness just before I hit the water. Too bad for me, I can never seem to catch a break when it comes to destiny.

* * *

 _ ***To Be Continued…***_

* * *

 _ **There's the prologue to the story for you, everyone. Now remember, I've posted a poll for the deck that Max is going to use in this story, so be sure to vote on the poll for that, so be sure to vote. And if you have any decks you'd like me to add to the poll, send them to me in the reviews. Be sure to include the Deck's rarest card. Until next time, everyone!**_


	2. Chapter 2

_**This chapter was co-written with fellow FanFiction author LegionnaireBlaze, so go and check out their profile. Read their stories and leave reviews for them!**_

 _ ***I still don't own Yu-Gi-Oh! or Maximum Ride!***_

* * *

 _ **Healing A Bird Kid! - Maximum Ride Joins The Battle City!**_

* * *

 _ **Regular POV.**_

* * *

On one of the beaches of the famous Duelist Kingdom, Pegasus was enjoying a nice relaxing walk. He'd been hard at work developing new cards for Duel Monsters in order to keep the game interesting, and felt the need to take a break from his work.

"Oh, the stresses and the ecstasy of being the creator of a card game!" Pegasus sighed, running a hand through his long silver hair.

Sometimes he felt a little weary, being the creator of Duel Monsters and not having an heir or an heiress to carry out his work when he passes. If only the woman he loved, Cecilia, hadn't died… oh, what happy times those were back in the days of his young adulthood…

Pegasus shook his head. Now was not the time to be getting all worked up! He has cards to make, and by gosh and golly, he's going to make them!

But as he moved to go back to his castle, Pegasus saw something drifting out in the shallow waters. He couldn't make out everything about what it was, but he could definitely tell that it was a person drifting out on a piece of driftwood. And from the look of things, this person has definitely seen better days.

"Oh my god! Man overboard!" gasped Pegasus.

He immediately ran out into the water and swam out to pull the person to shore. It wasn't all that hard, considering that his girl, as he can now tell, weighs practically nothing. Once he got her to shore, Pegasus gasped as he saw that this girl… is one of the famous bird kids he's heard so much about!

And not just any member of the Flock: it's Maximum Ride, their great leader!

But she looks to be in pretty rough shape. She's thinner than she should be, as her cheekbones are clearly visible, and her beautiful feathers have definitely seen better days. But the worst part of it is… her expiration date is visible…!

"This is bad…" muttered Pegasus.

He pulled out his cell phone, glad that he chose a waterproof one, and made a few quick calls to some of the best doctors he knows. If he's right, and he usually is even without his Millennium Eye, then he can find a way to cure Max of this atrocity on humanity and Recombinant life forms alike!

* * *

 _ **Max's POV.**_

* * *

I don't know how long I was out for, but I can tell that I'm not dead. So much for my suicide attempt.

But I don't know where I am. I can feel that I'm not in the ocean, but I'm not on earth anymore either. It looks like I'm in some area in space, but I can still breathe. Weird, right?

"Hello? Anybody out here?" I tried calling out.

But there was nothing. No signs of life, no response, no nothing! Just a pitch black void filled with stars, galaxies, comets and a giant dragon. Wait a second, what was that last part?!

Looking back, I gasped as I came face to face with a huge dragon the likes of which I've never seen before! It seemed to have entire galaxies shining within its eyes and looked like its body contained huge amounts of photons! Just don't ask me how I know what photons are.

The dragon lowered itself so it was eye level with me and exhaled a small amount of stardust at me. It didn't hurt or anything, but it did make my hair all shiny. I dusted my hair off and came to the only logical explanation.

He likes me!

I just stared in amazement at the dragon before me, even as my vision started to grow brighter and brighter.

I guess I'm waking up.

* * *

 _ **Third Person POV.**_

* * *

Max opened her eyes and felt that she was surrounded by water and initially panicked, thinking that someone was trying to drown her. It wouldn't be the first time something like this happened. But to her slight relief, she felt that there was a mask over her face that was helping her breathe. And now that she was getting a better feel for her environment, Max could tell that she was in some sort of glass chamber filled to the brim with a flowing and GLOWING green liquid.

It felt strange, but not all that unpleasant.

' _Heh… the bubbles tickle. He he… ow, it hurts to laugh.'_ she mentally grimaced. ' _He he, ow… he he, ow… he he, ow…'_

While the bubbles and currents of the water did indeed tickle, she also felt like she was healing at a faster rate than normal, but still a lot slower than she would've liked. She also finally felt that she wasn't in her normal clothes. Now, she's wearing a scuba suit since she's technically underwater.

' _How'd I get into this? Did someone dress me?'_ Max mentally asked herself.

"Oh, good. You're awake." said a woman's voice.

Max looked up and saw a woman in a white doctor's coat holding a clipboard as she stood in front of Max's healing pod. The blonde girl froze and her eyes filled with fear at the sight of a human in a white lab coat, memories of her life being experimented on by ITEX and The School flashing before her eyes.

Was this woman a member of the remnants of ITEX? Have they captured her seeking revenge?

But she saw no malice or hatred, or even the sick love of experimenting on sentient and non sapient beings alike, shining in the woman's eyes. Rather, they radiated with kindness and warmth, not unlike the eyes of her mother, Doctor Martinez. The woman seemed to notice how she was looking and placed a hand on the glass.

"It's okay, Max. You don't need to be afraid of me. I'm Doctor Kyu Akagi, and I've been hired with a team of elite medical scientists to help you."

Doctor Kyu has olive skin and auburn brown hair with green eyes. Her face had a light dusting of freckles on her cheeks, and she wore red thick rimmed glasses. She looked like she was in her early to mid twenties, and was a freaking amazon standing at a height of six feet eleven inches!

"How do you know my name? Who hired you?" Max asked, the breathing mask helping her to speak.

"We did some digging around and managed to get ahold of your medical files. They made this job so much easier. As for who hired us, that would be the owner and founder of Industrial Illusions, Maximillion Pegasus. I think you know who I'm talking about." Kyu replied.

How could Max NOT know? She and the rest of the Flock have been longtime fans of the Duel Monsters card game ever since it first came out. They've never played it themselves, but they know all of the current rules.

"Well, you see, you actually washed up near Duelist Kingdom, where Mister Pegasus got you out of the water and called for us. We're currently healing you using a specialized healing pod that we've been developing. It's more of a Regeneration Machine, really, because with it people would be able to regenerate limbs and organs that have been lost for various reasons. Provided they're still alive, of course." Kyu explained. "And if all goes well, in just six more days being in there, the machine will actually destroy your expiration date and purge it from your system."

Max's eyes widened at that prospect.

Being free from the very thing that promised her an early grave? This sounds almost too good to be true!

Her eyes became droopy as she felt the fatigue she'd worked up from her constant flying catching up to her again. Deciding to think of a plan later, Max succumbed to sleep. And when she wakes up, hopefully, she'll be free of her burden.

* * *

 _ ***Later…***_

* * *

 _ **Max's POV.**_

* * *

Deep inside Pegasus' island home, the location of Duelist Kingdom, the creator of Duel Monsters and it's precursor game, Monsters and Magic, Pegasus J. Crawford aka Maximillion Pegasus was situated in front of his most private items. Only one other person was present, Maxine Crawford, or 'just Max' as she would constantly stress, his adopted daughter. Did we mention she was 2% bird?

What was so important about these items? They were Duel Monsters, but not just any Duel Monsters, these were created by Pegasus after visions he had during his youth. Visions of Giants from a land of Light, facing off against an Emperor of Darkness, his generals Giants of Darkness, and his army of 100 Monsters.

"Pegasus, what did you bring me down here for?" Maxi (JUST MAX!) ...Max… asked her adoptive father. Pegasus just sighed through his nose as he looked at the two locked and chained, metal, deck boxes. Despite his loss of the Millennium Eye, he could still see the large powers permeating from the heavily sealed objects. One of great light, and its twin, of terrible darkness.

"I brought you down here Max, because you are the only person I trust to know about this place and the secrets it holds." He told her with a voice filled with sadness and regret.

Max just looked at him strangely.

"'Secrets'? All I see are two locked up deck boxes."

"That's because you're only looking with your eyes. The reason they are locked up is because of the power they wield."

"'Power'?"

"When I was a young boy, I, too, was plagued by visions. Visions of a war between two great forces. One of Warming Light, and one of Evil Darkness. Regardless of the time of day I would get terrifying glimpses of an unending war, and I was compelled to draw what I had seen. I had no idea where they had come from but I had an intimate understanding of the beings in each faction." He said as he remembered a troublesome time during his childhood. "I had drawn each and everything I saw, until the visions just STOPPED. Out of the blue, I was relieved of those HORRENDOUS battles. But I kept the drawings with me, I can't remember why, but after I had created Duel Monsters I was compelled once more, and I made them all into cards for my game. But the power they radiated was too much for anyone, including myself."

Max began to understand what Pegasus was telling her. "So you locked them away down here."

"Yes," he said firmly, "but now there are people coming after their power. And there is only one option left." He said as he turned to his daughter. "I need you to take them with you when you leave for Battle City."

"What?!"

"I don't expect you to use them, but I need you to keep them safe for me. If you do use the decks, you'll either paint a target on you, or you could succumb to the temptation of their power, maybe both. But you are the only person I can trust them with. Please, Max." Her father begged her, "Protect these at all costs."

Max looked into her parent's eye, "I will."

Pegasus gained relief at those words and began to laugh joyously, and hugged her. "Thank you, thank you." He said before he snapped back up having just remembered something important. "I just remembered something important, two things as a matter of fact."

"What? Is it about the tournament?"

"Yes. I just remembered I finished making your new cards last night." He told her making her gain a small twinkle in her eyes. "Also, I have six of my employees entering the tournament, you already know two of them."

Max's face fell, "Not those two."

"Yes, those two. I understand that their constant rhyming can grate one's nerves a bit, but they're some of the best of the best."

* * *

 _ ***To Be Continued…***_

* * *

 _ **Sorry if this chapter feels a little choppy and such, but it's over now. Next chapter will be more of a time table of Max's recovery process and how she became Pegasus's adoptive child. See you all in the next chapter I decide to update.**_


End file.
